“But tell me,” said Louis, obeying, “where you have come from, and what on earth you are doing here?”
“I have come from Clisson, my cousin De Lescure’s château near Bressuire, you know. There they all are not knowing what to do; but I—— My God! I couldn’t keep away when I heard of your victory on the 15th. So I came to ask M. de Sapinaud to take me as his aide-de-camp—or as anything he pleased.”
“A la bonne heure!” observed Saint-Ermay warmly. “You can have my place—my poor horse is dead.”
“Yes, but M. de Sapinaud won’t have me,” returned the young man with a smile. “He says—it is very absurd—that I am more fit to command than to be commanded. And I would rather a thousand times fight in the ranks—just for the pleasure of it.”
“Yes, it is hard lines to be a general malgré soi,” said Louis jestingly. “But old Sapinaud, I begin to think, knows what he is doing. And what, by the way, are they all about now at the Cross Roads?”
“M. de Sapinaud,” said La Rochejaquelein, leaning against the table, “has prevailed on the rest to elect, not himself, but M. de Royrand general-in-chief; he is general of division, while MM. de Vaugirard and Baudry d’Asson have been chosen as commandants, and your cousin as major-general—I forget the names of the others. And they have resolved, I understand, to make this position their headquarters, and to organise the surrounding district. But I am tiring you, Saint-Ermay, and I must get back. I only rode over from the Four Roads to see how you were. It is high time I started.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Saint-Aubin-de-Baubigné, to rouse my father’s tenantry at La Durbellière, if I can.” He was silent for a moment, his eyes kindling. “I shall say to them, I think, what one of my ancestors said to his retainers in the time of the wars of the League: ‘If I go forward, follow me; if I draw back, kill me; if I die, avenge me!’”
“If you look at them like that, Henri,” said Saint-Ermay, “there is not much doubt about their following you. Well, good luck! May we meet again!”
They clasped hands, and La Rochejaquelein was gone, taking out of the room with him an extraordinary impression of youth and ardour. But though he well remembered that evening afterwards, Louis could not guess at the time that the newly-formed army of the centre, self-effacing as it was always to be, had that night given back to the future grande armée its name of highest romance and its most brilliant sword.